William Osborne RHA (1823 - 1901) King of the House Oil on c...

Hammer

€11,000

William Osborne RHA (1823 - 1901) King of the House Oil on canvas, 92 x 71cm (36¼ x 28'') Signed Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent William Osborne is today best remembered as the father of the artist Walter Osborne, but was a significant artist in his own right. Born in Dublin in February 1823, he was twenty-one years of age when he entered the Royal Hibernian Academy as a student. He began exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1851 with three works, a portrait of a Terrier Dog, a watercolour of a Boy and another of a Girl from an address in Pleasants Street in Dublin. He was elected a Member in 1868 and exhibited almost every year up to his death. Strickland notes that Osborne devoted himself to the painting of animals, chiefly dogs and horses, which he loved and thoroughly understood and wrote ‘’His pictures of dogs, in which he excelled, are full of life and vivacity, well drawn and good in colouring, often with touches of humour, the work of a man who had made the habits and characteristics of dogs a constant study.’’ His son, Walter eclipsed the father as a painter and sadly only outlived him by a couple of years.